Matilda Gage - Woman, Church & State

The whole ancient world recognized a female priesthood, some peoples, like the Roman, making national safety dependent upon their ministration; others as in Egypt, according them pre-eminence in the priestly office, reverencing goddesses as superior to gods; still others as the Scandinavians, making no distinction in equality between gods and goddesses; others governing the nation’s course through oracles which fell from feminine lips, still others looking to the Sibylline Books for like decision. 45 45 The divine element, according to the idea of the ancient world, was composed of two sexes. There were dei femma , and hence temples sacred to goddesses; holy sanctuaries where were celebrated mysteries in which men could not be permitted to participate. The worship of goddesses necessitated priestesses, so that women exercised the sacerdotal office in the ancient world. The wives of the Roman Consuls even offered public sacrifices at certain festivals. The more property the wife had, the more rights she had. — M. Derraimes. Those historians anxious to give most credit to the humanizing effect of Christianity upon woman are compelled to admit her superiority among pagan nations before the advent of this religion. 46 46 The superiority of woman’s condition in Europe and America is generally attributed to Christianity. We are anxious to give some credit to that influence, but it must not be forgotten that the nations of Northern Europe treated women with delicacy and devotion long before they were converted to the Christian faith. Long before the Christian era women were held in high estimation, and enjoyed as many privileges as they generally have since the spread of Christianity. Nichols. — Women of all Nations.

The Patriarchate under which Biblical history and Judaism commenced, was a rule of men whose lives and religion were based upon passions of the grossest kind, showing but few indications of softness or refinement. Monogamous family life did not exist, but a polygamy whose primal object was the formation of a clan possessing hereditary chiefs ruling aristocratically. To this end the dominion of man over woman and the birth of many children was requisite. To this end polygamy was instituted, becoming as marked a feature of the Patriarchate as monogamy was of the Matriarchate. Not until the Patriarchate were wives regarded as property, the sale of daughters as a legitimate means of family income, or their destruction at birth looked upon as a justifiable act. Under the Patriarchate, society became morally revolutionized, the family, the state, the form of religion entirely changed. The theory of a male supreme God in the interests of force and authority, wars, family discord, the sacrifice of children to appease the wrath of an offended (male) deity are all due to the Patriarchate. These were practices entirely out of consonance with woman’s thought and life. Biblical Abraham binding Isaac for sacrifice to Jehovah, carefully kept his intentions from the mother Sarah. Jephtha offering up his daughter in accordance with his vow, allowing her a month’s life for the bewailment of her virginity, are but typical of the low regard of woman under the Patriarchate. During this period the destruction of girl children became a widely extended practice, and infantile girl murder the custom of many nations. During the Matriarchate all life was regarded as holy; even the sacrifice of animals was unknown. 47 47 When I go back to the most remote periods of antiquity into which it is possible to penetrate, I find clear and positive evidence of several important facts: First, no animal food was eaten; no animals were sacrificed. Higgins. — Anacalypsis II, p. 147. The most ancient and purest religions taught sacrifice of the animal passions as the great necessity in self-purification. But the Patriarchate subverted this sublime teaching, materializing spiritual truths, and substituting the sacrifice of animals, whose blood was declared a sweet smelling savor to the Lord of Hosts.

Both infanticide and prostitution with all their attendant horrors are traceable with polygamy, – their origin – to the Patriarchate or Father-rule, under which Judaism and Christianity rose as forms of religious belief. Under the Patriarchate woman has ever been regarded as a slave to be disposed of as father, husband or brother chose. Even in the most Christian lands, daughters have been esteemed valuable only in proportion to the political or pecuniary advantage they brought to the father, in the legal prostitution of an enforced marriage. The sacrifice of woman to man’s baser passions has ever been the distinguishing characteristic of the Patriarchate. But woman’s degradation is not the normal condition of humanity, neither did it arise from a settled principle of evolution, but is a retrogression, due to the grossly material state of the world for centuries past, in which it has lost the interior meaning or spiritual significance of its own most holy words.

Jehovah signifies not alone the masculine and the feminine principles but also the spirit or vivifying intelligence. It is a compound word indicative of the three divine principles. 48 48 Observe that I.H.U. is Jod, male, father; “He” is female, Binah, and U is male, Vau, Son. — Sepher Yetzirah. Holy Ghost, although in Hebrew a noun of either gender, masculine, feminine, neuter, is invariably rendered masculine by Christian translators of the Bible. 49 49 The Perfect Way. – Kingsford. In the Greek, from whence we obtain the New Testament, spirit is of the feminine gender, although invariably translated masculine. The double-sexed word, Jehovah, too sacred to be spoken by the Jews, signified the masculine-feminine God. 50 50 I.A.H. according to the Kabbalists, is I. (Father) and A.H. (Mother); composed of I. the male, and H. the mother. Nork. — Bibl. Mythol., I , 164-65 (note to Sod 166, 2, 354). The proof of the double meaning of Jehovah, the masculine and feminine signification, Father-Mother, is undeniable. Lanci, one of the great orientalists, says:

Jehovah should be read from left to right, and pronounced Ho-Hi; that is to say He-She (Hi pronounced He,) Ho in Hebrew being the masculine pronoun and Hi the feminine. Ho-Hi therefore denotes the male and female principles, the vis genatrix. 51 51 Nork says the “Woman clothed with the sign of the Sun and the Moon is the bi-sexed or male-female deity; hence her name is Iah, composed of the masculine I and the feminine Ah . Sod. – Appendix 123.

Kingsford says:

The arbitrary and harsh aspect under which Jehovah is chiefly presented in the Hebrew Scriptures is due not to any lack of the feminine element either in His name or in His nature, or to any failure on the part of the inspired leaders of Israel to recognize their equality, but to the rudimentary condition of the people at large, and their consequent amenability to the delineation of the stern side only of the Divine Character. 52 52 The Perfect Way , p. 78.

The Hebrew word El Shaddai , translated, “The Almighty” is still more distinctively feminine than Iah , as it means “The Breasted God,” and is made use of in the Old Testament whenever the especially feminine characteristics of God are meant to be indicated. 53 53 That name of Deity, which occurring in the Old Testament is translated the Almighty, namely El Shaddai, signified the Breasted God, and is used when the mode of the divine nature implied is of a feminine character. Kingsford. — The Perfect Way , p. 68.

The story of the building of the tower of Babel and the subsequent confusion of language possesses deep interior significance; the word (Babel) meaning “God the Father” as distinct and separate from the feminine principle. The confusion which has come upon humanity because of this separation has been far more lamentable in its results than a mere confounding of tongues. 54 54 A chief signification of the word Babel among Orientals was “God the Father.” The Tower of Babel therefore signifies the Tower of God the Father – a remarkable indication of the confusion, not alone of tongues, but of religious ideas arising from man’s attempt to worship the father alone. — E. L. Mason. Injustice to the sex reached its culmination in the enthronement of a personal God with a Son to share his glory, but wifeless, motherless, daughterless. — Dr. William Henry Channing. In the earliest religions the recognition of the feminine principle in the divinity is everywhere found. “I am the Father and Mother of the Universe” said Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita.